


Food For Thought: Gingersnaps & Peppermint

by lavachick85



Series: How Darcy Met Bucky [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Assistant Darcy Lewis, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Darcy Lewis & Steve Rogers Friendship, Darcy Lewis hates HYDRA, F/M, Feels, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Steve Rogers is a Troll, What Have I Done, a gloriously foul mouthed troll, all the feels, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 20:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17587691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavachick85/pseuds/lavachick85
Summary: “I’m not a good person,” he blurted out of nowhere. “I’m not Steve.”Darcy frowned and set down her mug, brows arched and mouth open a little. “Pardon?”He only looked more agitated now and he huffed a sigh, rising to his feet again. His un-gloved hand tapped against the outside of his thigh and he chewed at the corner of his mouth until it was raw and painful looking. “All this effort,” he waved a hand around, nudged the pack of gingersnaps on the table, “I’m not worth it. Steve can’t be told, he’s bull headed and stupid and thinks there’s somethin’ left to save... You’re smarter’n that.” He took a lumbering step away from the table and stopped when he was level with her side. “Don’t waste your time and effort, Miss Lewis.” He paused again just inside the door and shook his head a little, eyes on the floor. “M’not worth it.”





	Food For Thought: Gingersnaps & Peppermint

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty!
> 
> So this is the start of something new, a thing I'm trying, if you will. There are plans to extend this universe beyond the two parts I've already written and if you guys (you wonderful, glorious people) like it.. Well, we'll see what happens and how quickly I can pump new stuff out, won't we? 
> 
> No smut this time, sorry!!
> 
> Fair notice; Steve is a potty mouthed troll who likes to swear. He's a snarky shit and I love him. I apologise if his OOC-ness isnt for everyone. 
> 
> That being said, (hopefully??) enjoy!

 

Darcy was busy rolling back and forth across the lab on her favorite office chair, the red seat worn and squishy from the many, many hours she had spent with her butt parked on it as she waited (im)patiently for Jane to finish up for the day. She herself had been busy for the most part decoding and inputting data into the carefully compiled spreadsheets that she’d created for all the important stuff, but now, now she was ready to leave the shiny, shiny lab and go find something to eat. Something that wasn’t a fucking pop tart. All she had to do was supervise Jane and make sure she didn’t dive headlong into a new project, tug on a new string that would undoubtedly end up unraveling into a whole new mess that she had to sort through before the day’s end. Yeah, no. She wasn’t about to dig into something new when it was almost nine PM on a Thursday night and she hadn’t had any real sleep in almost two days. Power naps just weren’t as satisfying as they used to be; fuck Tony Stark and his stupid comfy beds and expensive sheets for ruining that for her. Fuck him, good.

“Jaaaaney,” she crooned, head lolled back, feet skimming her along the tiles, hands hung over the arms of her chair as she spun in a slow circle. “It’s time for real people food, Jane. You know, something that doesn’t come out of a foil wrapper and is actually served hot? Do you remember real food, Jane? It’s that tasty substance that gives you not only all your vitamins and minerals and daily nutritional needs but also that warm glowy feeling of contentment… Do you remember, Jane?”

Jane didn’t even bother to conceal her eye roll but set about shutting down her computer, gathering her coffee mug (that for some reason she wouldn’t leave in the lab overnight) and tucking her tiny little midget feet into her sneakers whilst she waited for it to power down.

“I know what food is, Darcy,” she admonished, her mouth set in a mulish line. Darcy couldn’t bear to hold it against her, her bad mood, that was, after all if she had a smokin’ hot boyfriend that was absent more often than not like Jane did she would be a real life grumpy cat too. Girl just couldn’t catch a break.

Darcy hummed, kicking her feet so the chair spun a full, jerky revolution. “Well maybe you should eat more of it,” she shot her an assessing look that started at her feet and ended at the top of her head. “You’re losing too much weight – that you don’t have to lose in the first place, might I add – and if you keep going as you are there’s going to be nothing left for Thor to bend over the back of the sofa. Don’t look at me like that, I share an apartment with you, I know what you two get up to.” She ignored the indignant squawking from Jane’s direction and smirked sideways at her. “There will be no chance for some thunder down under if he breaks you in half, Janey.”

There was a choked snort off to her right and Darcy almost fell out of her chair from the fright. In fact, she would have face planted the floor if it hadn’t been for two fingers catching the belt loop at the small of her back when she was scant inches from a possible broken nose. She would have been embarrassed but she was at a point in her life where she was comfortable with her lack of grace and poise and instead of blushing scarlet like any normal human being would, she let herself hang from those two fingers and righted her glasses before casually hauling herself to her feet. She brushed at the imaginary dust on her jeans and her smile turned sunny and bright when she took in their unexpected visitor.

“It’s Security Steve!”

He smothered a grin and she could tell he was biting the inside of his cheek. His gloriously big shoulders shook with barely concealed mirth. “Good evening, Darce.” He nodded at Jane over her shoulder. “Doc.”

Jane stammered out a reply, all the while trying to hide her blotchy cheeks behind her hair (so not working, by the by) and went back to gathering her belongings so they could pack up and leave for the night.

Darcy however, was busy peering past Steve ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ Rogers (that complete fucking troll, she knew better) and eyeing the dark shadow of a man in the back of the lab. He was standing away from the windows, his body at parade rest and was currently studying one of the ceiling tiles with an intensity that made her body twitch. He oozed competency and goddamn, goddamn, he was pretty; all sharp cheekbones and strong jawline with a couple of days of scruff covering his skin. He had long dark hair that barely brushed the collar of his black button up shirt and was wearing a pair of soft looking dirt washed jeans that faded to a pale blue over the middle of his thick thighs, a pair of worn steel capped boots on his big feet. There was a tear in the fabric just below his knee and she could see a peek of pale skin and the bottom of his right kneecap. He had a small, rough scar there that disappeared underneath the cover of denim. Heat suffused her belly and she rolled her wrist against her thigh. She wasn’t so hard up that a hint of bare man flesh made her crazy with want, but she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what the newcomer looked like under the rest of his clothes; was he ripped like Steve or long and lithe like a runner? He was wide, built like a brick shit-house to be fair, but there was something about him that made her bite her tongue, like she already knew her pervy comments wouldn’t be as welcome as they were when she was casually hitting on Sam.

She felt a little dirty just thinking about it now and it perturbed her more than a little bit.

Still, unless he had some kind of latent psychic ability, she could think about him naked all she damn well pleased and he’d be none the wiser. Good deal.

She schooled her expression into one of polite curiosity and prayed that her inner pervert wasn’t outwardly showing. “New friend, Cap?”

He looked at her, nose wrinkled and confused. “Huh? Oh!” He turned so he was half facing her, half toward the door and waved his friend over. “Ladies, I’d like you to meet my best friend, Bucky. Buck, this is Doctor Jane Foster,” he gestured to the small scientist, “And this is Miss Darcy Lewis.” His smile reached his eyes as he glanced at her and she felt a rush of familial love for him. He was such a fucking teddy bear and it made her want to smooch his stupid cheeks and watch him squirm, so she did. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she bussed a noisy, red stained kiss to his cheek. To his credit he didn’t even blush this time, merely patted her on the top of her head and rolled his eyes the same way her brothers did. He knew that she’d adopted him into the family, hell, so had her mother after she’d dragged him home for thanksgiving the year before after finding out he had nobody else to spend it with and he took her casual affection with the patience of a saint. She imagined it was nice to feel wanted, loved and cared for by someone who it wasn’t expected of with no ulterior motive after all these years of being alone…

She snapped her gum and shot the newcomer what she hoped was a friendly (and not at all lecherous) grin. “S’up, Bucky?” She blinked rapidly after a moment. “Wait. Bucky. _The_ Bucky?” Her voice had taken on that strangled pitch that scared cats and small children. “James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky?”

Steve looked like he couldn’t decide whether he was proud as punch that he’d finally found his AWOL best buddy or if he was embarrassed. “Yes?”

She cocked an eyebrow at all things truth, justice and the American way. That fucking liar. “Dude, was that a question? Are you not sure if it’s actually him or is the senility making you forgetful again?”

Steve shot her a blithe smile, eyes sparkling and flipped her the bird. “Go fuck yourself.”

Darcy’s laughter left her in a whoosh and she threw her head back. She could recall a time when Steve had been all about the polite and courteous and refused to swear in front of any woman, but she’d long since broken him of the habit. Swearing was honest to God fun and it tickled her pink to know that he was comfortable enough around her to forget that she was in fact, female.

The man had a mouth that would make the lovechild of a sailor and a trucker blush.

Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she grinned so hard that her cheeks dimpled. “What’s wrong, Rogers, did you miss your afternoon nap or something? Do you need me to make you a glass of warm milk and tuck you in? Rub some lavender oil into your sore feet and hum you a lullaby while you catch up on today’s episode of wheel of fortune?”

He didn’t even bother to conceal his amusement this time and cocked his head at her. “What part of go fuck yourself are you missing, Darce? Because I meant every word of it. With a barge pole, Darcy. With a goddamn barge pole.”

“You’re a shameless flirt, Steven. Shameless. I fucking love it.”

Someone cleared their throat and Darcy looked away from her adoptive brother and raised a defined brow at Barnes. He was looking between her and Steve with a look of quiet contemplation on his admittedly beautiful face, hands jammed into his pockets. His eyes were a vivid, icy blue that were framed out by long, dark lashes.

Darcy shook herself visibly and held out her left hand. “Nice to meet you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

He stared at her hand for a long moment, long enough for her to fidget, a small wrinkle between his brows forming and he shifted from foot to foot. Steve put a hand on his shoulder and murmured something to him that she couldn’t quite make out and the darker man let out a shaky breath before tugging his hand free of his pocket to curl his gloved fingers around her outstretched hand. His grip was firm but his posture screamed that the contact was making him feel squirrely and the handshake lasted all of a few seconds before he was shoving his fist back into the tight pocket of his jeans. He shot her a tight lipped smile that looked uncomfortable on his face, like he hadn’t had much practice doing it and his eyes flitted past her to Jane. The scientist said her hellos and appeared at Darcy’s side, a purple backpack that was almost as big as her slung over a narrow shoulder.

“You guys eaten yet?”

Steve’s shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug. “Nah,” he glanced at Bucky and looked at his friend’s stomach with a smirk when it rumbled on queue. “Dinner?”

Bucky looked uncomfortable at the thought of food and Darcy wondered what his deal was. Sure, she knew about him, of him, but she wasn’t too clear on exact details save for the fact that she knew Steve had been looking for him for a long time. She could have scoured through all the shit that had been leaked in the SHIELD dump to see what the go was, but to her it felt wrong, invasive and unnecessary. If he or Steve wanted her to know the ins and outs of his life in captivity, they’d offer her the information on their own terms.

“I,” Bucky cleared his throat and looked anywhere that wasn’t at Steve’s concerned face. “Me an’ food don’t get along.” He shrugged, a small, timid movement that made her insides hurt and her mothering instincts kick in. “Haven't actually eaten anythin’ proper in a long time.”

She could tell he was trying for casual but the elephant in the room was hard to ignore. It was Jane who opened the can of worms, her voice horrified and quiet. “… Are you saying they didn’t feed you, Honey?”

The discomfort returned and it took him a few attempts at opening his mouth to speak. Steve’s hand was clutching at his broad shoulder and he glanced at it, perturbed. “There were feeding tubes.” He mumbled defensively and Darcy’s heart lurched painfully when his hand unconsciously rubbed at his side, no doubt where the tubes had been inserted time after time.

“Is that why I’ve never seen you eat anything since you came back?” Steve sounded hoarse and sad. “Buck, have you been living on Gatorade and bottled water?”

His silence was telling and the air in the lab pretty much crackled with tension. Darcy was furious on his behalf; how fucking dare they treat him like that! How dare they take a man that was built like him, who obviously needed triple the amount of calories a day that any normal man would and treat him like some sort of fucking science experiment! It was cruel and horrific and how fucking _dare_ they!

“Nope. No way. This is unacceptable.” She muttered, shouldering her bag and taking a step towards the men with a look of frightening determination on her face. She was talking to herself as she shoved them towards the lab door, Jane’s hand held firm in hers as she tottered along behind them.  “We’ll start simple. Porridge oats, eggs, natural sugars like fruit and none of that evil shit that doesn’t belong in decent food. No spices. Ginger biscuits for the unavoidable nausea.” She shot a quiet Bucky a questioning glance as they crowded into the elevator and the doors slid shut behind them, carrying them up to the residential floors where the occasionally used commercial kitchen was but he avoided her gaze and kept his eyes on the floor.

The kitchen took up most of the sixty seventh floor and was a bright, airy space that she knew her mother would melt into a giant puddle of envious goop over. There was a large wooden table that had twelve chairs tucked around it in one corner and a large, open plan kitchen with four large ovens, a dedicated pie oven and a ten burner hob, one of which was a larger wok burner. The walls were a lovely lemon yellow and the backsplashes were a frosted white glass that complimented the massive white marble island in the middle of the room and there was a double doored walk-in pantry that was seemingly always stuffed full of all sorts of delicious foods from all over the world.

She really liked the little spiced gingerbread cookies that practically melted on her tongue (they were covered in a thin pink and white glaze and drizzled in dark chocolate) that she had found in there a few weeks back, tucked into a little tin that had rabbits on it in in the back of the top shelf. She _really_ liked them. She had one (ok, maybe three) every morning with her coffee before she trundled down to the lab and she had been genuinely dismayed to find that there were only two left in the tin that morning. Needless to say she had tucked the pretty little tin into the back of the cupboard that contained the cleaning supplies and was hoarding them for a special occasion that was yet to occur. She wasn’t sure what they were called so she couldn’t even order any more.

The trio filed out of the elevator after her like a line of truly frightening ducklings and took their usual places at the table. Well, Steve and Jane did. Bucky hovered off to the side, unsure and uncomfortable as his eyes flitted around every corner of the room as if he was cataloguing every avenue of entry and possible exit. His gaze fixed on the skylight above her and he frowned, displeased at the apparent lack of security.

“Alright, my darling little duckling,” she bustled around the kitchen, producing a small Teflon coated frying pan and a carton of eggs, a bag of pre-shredded mild cheese and some salt. Sure, there was fat in the cheese, but it was still fairly bland and the protein would do him good. Hopefully. “Do you want to watch me make it or do you trust me not to spit in it?” She asked as she cracked four eggs into a small glass jug and whisked them together with a pinch of salt.

He was watching her from almost three feet away, the space between his brows doing the little wrinkle thing again. She wanted to reach out and smooth it away with her thumb but she figured that would possibly, probably, get her nothing less than a broken wrist, so she didn’t.

“Make what?” He asked, voice gravel rough and laced with a side of exhaustion.

A small smile graced her lips and she paused, waving the eggy glass jug at him carefully so the eggs didn’t slosh over the side. “An omelette, duh.”

He pursed his lips (and hey, they were nice lips, all pink and full and just a little chapped) and shot Steve a look that was clearly confused. “I don’t know what’s happening.” He admitted after a beat, looking between her and Steve, to Jane and then back again. His hands twitched in much the same manner as Steve’s would when she’d first met him. All tense and desperate for a weapon that would help him feel grounded in the unfamiliar situation. “What’s happening, Steve?”

Steve lifted a brow at him and sat back in the chair at the table, his arm braced on the empty seat beside him where Darcy herself usually sat when they ate at the table. “I believe Darcy is making you an omelette.” He spoke slowly as not to confuse him and Bucky’s face morphed from confused into suspicious in the blink of an eye.

He gave her the side-eye whilst putting his back to the wall, his hands seeking out the cool flat of it to press back. To ground himself, maybe. Who knew.

“ _Why?_ ”

She tried not to shrink under his gaze, tried not to let him know that his suspicion was hurting her feelings and shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage. “Why not? A man’s gotta eat, Duckling.”

He grunted. “M’not a duckling.”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed airily and flipped the dial on the medium sized burner in the middle of the hob, the electric ignition clicking for a moment before the gas caught and she set the pan over the heat. “Of course you’re not, mon petit poi.” She poured the eggs into the hot pan and glanced at him as he prowled closer to watch what she was doing. His presence at her back was warm but strangely comfortable and she could smell soap, something woodsy and clean as well as a hint of gun oil.

“M’not a fucking _pea_ either.” He grumped and she poked at the edge of the eggs with a flexible spatula, grinning to herself.

“You speak French.” She wasn’t sure why she was surprised but then Steve spoke the language fluently so it made sense that Bucky would too.

He didn’t bother to reply, merely watched as she picked up the bag of cheese and offered it to him to sniff, then sprinkled a small handful over the top once he was satisfied it was ok. She flipped the omelette over and in half and let it cook through a little more before sliding it onto a plate, handed him a fork and shooed him off toward the table. She didn’t watch the play of his muscular thighs as he walked away from her, not at all, and she most certainly did not debate the merits of biting the curve of his perfect ass in her head either. Nope. No way.

Ok, maybe a little.

It was a great ass. Sue her.

She could hear Steve coaxing him to ‘stop glaring at it and try eating some’ as she pulled out a large Tupperware container full of lamb korma that Doctor Banner had made them the day previously and set about dishing it up into three bowls, two small, shallow ones for herself and Jane and one larger, deeper bowl that was for Steve. There was a package of foil wrapped naan in the fridge and she nabbed that too, quickly heating all the food and gathering cutlery whilst she waited for the microwave to beep.

“Is it alright?” She called across the kitchen, her back to the group as she bent into the under counter microwave to retrieve the steaming bowls of curry. There was a quiet clink of fork against plate and after a moment, Steve answered for him.

“It looks great. Thank you, Darcy.” His voice wobbled a little and it was quieter than usual so when she looked up and saw him pointedly not watching Bucky slowly eat the contents of his plate, eyes fixed on the ceiling with a frightening hint of glass in them, she made sure to serve him first. He needed a distraction. Her hand smoothed across his cottony-soft shoulders and pat him on the head affectionately before she moved to grab the rest of the food for herself and Jane.

They ate quietly, all four lost in thought until finally Bucky clearing his throat made them all look up. He was clutching his fork and poking at the quarter of his omelette that was left on his plate. His bottom lip was snagged in his teeth and he carefully set down the fork on his plate before tucking his hands into his lap underneath the table.

“I think ‘m full.”

Darcy smiled at him, whole and bright, pleased with how much he’d managed to put away. It was by no means ideal nor anywhere near enough, but he’d tried and was most likely going to suffer for it later. She remembered the reintroduction of solid foods after one of her many surgeries as a kid vividly and felt her stomach twist in sympathy when she recalled how sick she’d felt after every meal for almost a week afterwards. It very well could have been the pre-emptive antibiotics that she’d been on at the time or even the weakened stomach muscles that had been cut and sewn back up during the surgery to remove her gall-bladder, but it had made her feel like shit regardless. She decided not to make a big deal of his lack of appetite right there and then.

She pasted a small smile onto her face and hopped up to collect his plate. “Do you want a drink, Ananas?” She snorted at the indignant quirk of his brow. “What. Not fond?”

He eyed her with no small amount of distaste. “Did you just call me a fucking _pineapple_?!”

She beamed at him. “Yes, my prickly not-so-little friend, I absolutely did. Gold star for you.”

He stoically ignored Steve’s vibrating shoulders and rubbed a hand across his face with a sigh. She wasn’t sure that it was an affectionate one, but it wasn’t annoyed either. She was classing it as a win. After a minute Steve’s silent laughter became audible and he let out an indelicate snort, his big hand coming up to cover his mouth. Bucky glared at him and it only made things so much worse. Before long Steve was wheezing against the table and his lovely Irish skin was bright pink all the way from his ears to the skin that disappeared beneath the vee of his shirt. There were honest to God tears leaking down his cheeks and he was clutching at his chest as if his heart was about to vacate the premises.

Bucky eyed him out of the corner of his eye and glanced at Darcy and Jane, then shifted in his seat. “You havin’ an asthma attack or somethin’?” His un-gloved hand was reaching for Steve’s back as he coughed and wheezed and fucking guffawed into the shiny wooden table top. He gave it a light pat and prodded his shoulder. “Stevie, are you dyin’?”

Steve sniffed loudly and pushed himself upright, laughter giving way to a bone weary exhaustion that made his entire body ache. “I’m sorry,” he wiped at his face with the hem of his shirt and pushed his empty bowl towards the center of the table, his breath leaving him in a whoosh. “I’m so fucking tired.”

Darcy smiled up at Jane as she collected their dishes and cleared the table. “Maybe you guys should go get settled for the night, get some sleep?” She pulled a couple of bottles of water from the fridge and dug through the pantry for a moment before returning to the table with a cylindrical package of gingersnap cookies and a bag of sweet peppermints. She thrust them at Bucky and waited patiently for him to take them, beaming at him as his fingers tentatively curled around the packets and he accepted the offerings without a word. “For the inevitable bout of nausea you’re going to have later,” she explained. “The ginger should settle your stomach and the mints will help if you can’t bear the thought of eating the cookies. Don’t crunch ‘em though, suck on them.”

He blinked at the packages, bewildered. “Um.”

Steve kicked him under the table and his head shot up to glare at his best friend. Steve ignored his dark look and smiled serenely at him. That troll.

“Say thank you to Darcy, Buck.”

Bucky glowered at him for a full minute, long enough for her to move to help Jane with the dishes, before flicking his eyes in her direction and mumbling something unintelligible that she suspected was a thank you. She could feel his eyes following her around the kitchen and she leaned up into the warm press of lips against the crown of her head as Steve gave her a one armed goodnight hug, squeezing her to his side tightly.

“Thanks for dinner, Darcy,” he said into her hair, much the same way he had after their trip to her mother’s house at thanksgiving. It was warm and sweet and at times she sort of wished it felt like more than brotherly affection to her because hey, loneliness was totally a thing, but it didn’t. Steve was firmly in the brother zone of her heart and she looked up at him affectionately, gave him a pat on the stomach and shoved him towards the door where Bucky was waiting impatiently with his stash of bottled water and cookies.  She wriggled her fingers at him in a small wave and gave him her best smile.

“Rest well, Sugar plum.”

He rolled his eyes at her, lip curled into a sneer but nodded regardless. “My mother did give me a name, you know, contrary to popular belief.”

She gave him a limp, dismissive wave. “I’m sure she did, but it’s a boring one that belongs on a farm boy from Iowa, not someone as T,D&S as yourself. Sugar plum, you shall be.”

He looked confused for a moment before following Steve out of the kitchen. She almost made it back to the sink before she heard his quiet voice ask what the hell ‘T,D&S’ meant and Steve’s answering snort of laughter echoing down the hall. Unable to contain her giggling she hip-checked Jane away from the sink and nudged her off after them after a series of jaw cracking yawns escaped the little scientist.

“Go to bed, Jane,” she suggested gently, “I’ll be up soon.”

It took her a further ten minutes to tidy up the kitchen and put everything back in their place before she stumbled into the elevator and punched the button for her floor, eyes blinking blearily behind her glasses, the bridge of her nose sore from where the frames dug in some days. She’d broken her nose playing football with her brother in the back yard when she was younger and some days it gave her hell, aching if touched and playing havoc with her sinuses. Bloody snot was still a thing. Today was one of those days and she pulled them off her face with one hand, carefully folding the arms down and holding them loosely in her fingers as she trudged down the hall toward her shared apartment with Jane. She waited for her thumbprint to register and let herself inside, completely unsurprised to find her boss-slash-close friend curled in a small dot on the huge, squishy sofa that dominated their living room, dead to the world and drooling in her sleep.

“Janey, Janey, Janey,” she sighed and unlaced her shoes, dumping them on the floor before she pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa to cover her. “What am I going to do with you?” Jane’s light snore was her only response and Darcy headed for her bedroom with a small but affectionate smile on her face. She glanced back once or twice, just to be sure she was settled and safe then closed the door behind her with a click. She didn’t even bother with the light, merely shuffled into the bathroom, did her business, braided her hair back and brushed her teeth before peeling her jeans off and shrugging out of her cardigan and t-shirt then stumbled to bed and snuggled underneath the fluffy down of her quilt. She was almost asleep when she remembered she was still wearing her bra and it took all of the effort in the world to sit up and take it off before she snuggled back into her bedding and let out a long, tired sigh.

She fell asleep with the image of Bucky’s face after he’d admitted to not eating in god knows how long in her mind’s eye and the painful confusion in his eyes when he’d been handed his dinner, like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it next.

She couldn’t do anything to rid the world of the people who had put that look in his eyes, but she could certainly help him erase it. All she had to do now was convince him that it was worth the effort.

 

**

 

She stumbled into the kitchen at quarter to five the next morning, her body wide awake after six hours of sleep but her brain still foggy and demanding she go back to bed and ignore her stupid twitchy feet and complaining bladder. She’d always been this way, technically able to physically function on a few hours worth of sleep only for her head to remain a foggy, confused mess. She could tuck herself underneath the blankets all day long and try to will herself back to dreamland but in the end, every fucking time, it was her restless legs that made her give up and crawl out of her warm cocoon of blankets and pillows and go in search of something, anything, to do.

She puttered around the kitchen for a few minutes, setting up the coffee machine with fresh water and digging through the pantry for her favorite coffee beans before she pulled out the grinder and dumped a couple of heaped scoops into it and replaced the lid. She thumbed the switch and dutifully ignored the screeching of the beans as they ground down into a fine, delicious smelling powder and pulled out her favorite Care Bears mug, added a slug of caramel syrup to it and carefully tipped the coffee into the filter. She turned the machine on and watched it for a few seconds, hands rubbing her face as she struggled to wake up properly. She idly reached down to scratch at her thigh, tugged the leg of her shorts a little lower and slumped against the island. Her hair was falling free of its braid and she tucked an errant curl behind her ear absently.

“’s too early,” she whined to herself quietly, mentally cussing herself out for being one of _those_ people, _morning people_ , her brain supplied and she scowled into her hands. She didn’t _want_ to be a morning person but her body, her _stupid_ body wouldn’t let her go back to sleep and she spent another minute swearing at herself before she poured her coffee and slipped into her chair at the table.

She blew on the top of her coffee before testing it against her lip. It was still too hot and she set it back down with a half-hearted grumble but content to let it sit for a while so she didn’t burn her tongue. There was a movement out of the corner of her eye and she looked back over her shoulder in surprise only to find none other than the tower’s newest resident eyeing her from across the room. He was almost painfully still in the early morning and she blinked up at him with sleepy, blue eyes. He’d abandoned his clothes from the night before and instead was wearing a pair of Steve’s sweatpants and a long sleeved navy blue shirt that had a high round neck. He was still wearing the glove but his feet were bare against the varnished wood floor.

“Morning,” she ventured quietly. It was too early for loud voices and half of the city was still sleeping so it just felt right to keep things at a lower volume. She eyed the packet of ginger cookies he had clutched in his right hand, the empty end of the wrapper crinkled and twisted shut so the contents wouldn’t go stale. There was over half a pack missing and she winced, her teeth bared in a guilty grimace. “Rough night?”

He was quiet for a minute, then he slowly moved to the table and slipped into the seat opposite her, right where he’d sat last night. He picked at the plastic wrapper and his nose wrinkled slightly. “I threw up.”

“Shit,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers and hey, she’d totally forgotten to put her glasses on before leaving the apartment. Huh. No wonder things were so blurry. “M’sorry, Sugar plum.”

He looked like he wanted to protest the use of her nickname for him but he decided against it and his mouth twisted into an uncomfortable frown. “S’not your fault,” his shoulders were up around his ears and she got the impression that he was trying to make himself smaller somehow. It was never going to work; he was a mountain of a man and there was nothing he could do to hide it. She catalogued the way his shirt, or rather Steve’s shirt if her suspicions were correct, didn’t fit so well across his chest and the way it pulled on his left arm more than the right. Odd, but interesting. She knew who he was, that he had a metal arm but she’d seen nothing of the sort in person and if he wasn’t comfortable showing the limb off then she wasn’t going to push, no matter how curious she was about it.

She tested her coffee against her bottom lip again and set it back down. Still too hot. “Did the cookies help at all or did you just like the taste?”

He blinked up at her then looked at the packet in his hand. “Um.” He shook his head a little and carefully unwound the wrapper, fingers fishing a fragrant, small cookie from inside. He turned it over in his fingers for a minute before taking a small bite after bringing it to his nose to inhale the spicy scent. “Helps.”

She shot him a pleased smile, grateful that she could do something to help, even if it were something so small and insignificant. “Good,” she sipped her coffee now and wrapped her fingers around the colorful mug. “I’m glad.”

He took another small bite of the biscuit and chewed slowly, face down turned towards his lap.

“Did you want to try something else?” She knew he probably wouldn’t be too sold on the idea but he needed to eat and if she wasn’t able to go back to sleep then maybe… No. Never mind. He wasn’t Steve and she couldn’t push him into humoring her strange mothering habits, that much was obvious. She’d made him physically ill last time and she didn’t want to jeopardize his recovery. She rejigged her thoughts and shot him a tired, tight lipped smile. “Let me know if you get hungry again.”

He fidgeted in his seat, shoulders tense and it made her ire from the night before return full swing. He was a living, breathing human being and he’d been treated like garbage for decades, used and abused and taken apart until there was nothing of himself left. God, it made her so fucking angry for him that she could barely see straight and her hands curled in on themselves, bright purple fingernails scraping against the side of her mug with a shriek. He deserved better. More. He definitely deserved more than the shitty hand he’d been dealt and it pained her that not many other people seemed to see that. Steve did, sure and after last night, Jane too probably but the amount of people who were on his side seemed far outweighed by the amount against him. It just wasn’t fair. For fucks sake, he couldn’t even remember how to eat properly.

“You’re upset.”

Darcy flinched and looked up sharply at his quiet observation, wondering what gave it away. She was generally fairly good at masking her feelings but here he was, almost a virtual stranger and he had her pegged already. “I,” she swallowed a mouthful of coffee and looked at him over the rim of her mug. “What makes you say that?”

He studied her for a long moment and finally shrugged, pulling another cookie from the wrapper. He stuffed it into his mouth whole this time. “Heart rate is elevated,” he murmured, not looking at her and she wondered what else he’d noticed but he was pointedly avoiding her gaze, staring at a whirl in the wooden floorboards across the room.

“You can tell just by looking at me that my heartbeat is elevated?”

His mouth was set in a firm line, eyes devoid of any emotion and he still wouldn’t look at her. Finally he lifted a hand up to tap his ear once and then let it fall back into his lap.

She blinked at him, mute with surprise. “You can _hear_ it?!”

He grimaced then, eyes closed and head cocked on an angle that made his discomfort evident. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, shoulders hunched. “I can’t turn it off and it’s invasive as fuck. It’s rude. I’m sorry.” He apologized and moved to leave the table but Darcy held her hand out to stop him. She came nowhere near close to touching him but it stopped him in his tracks anyway and he slowly lowered himself back into the chair, both hands splayed out on the table in front of him.

She decided to take the bull by the horns. “Steve mentioned that you were enhanced,” she started calmly. “Is that how you can hear my heart beat?”

He nodded hesitantly and tucked his hair back behind his ear. Darcy did not stare at the way his chest shifted when he did it or at the way his face was now exposed to her, the sharp line of his jaw visible and pale. The muscle in his cheek jumped and he inhaled through his nose. “I’m not a good person,” he blurted out of nowhere. “I’m not Steve.”

Darcy frowned and set down her mug, brows arched and mouth open a little. “Pardon?”

He only looked more agitated now and he huffed a sigh, rising to his feet again. His un-gloved hand tapped against the outside of his thigh and he chewed at the corner of his mouth until it was raw and painful looking. “All this effort,” he waved a hand around, nudged the pack of gingersnaps on the table, “I’m not worth it. Steve can’t be told, he’s bull headed and stupid and thinks there’s somethin’ left to save... You’re smarter’n that.” He took a lumbering step away from the table and stopped when he was level with her side. “Don’t waste your time and effort, Miss Lewis.” He paused again just inside the door and shook his head a little, eyes on the floor. “M’not _worth_ it.”

She tried to bite her tongue and let him leave but she couldn’t help herself. God, she’d never known when to shut her fat trap and it was always getting her into trouble. “Who are you trying to convince, Bucky Barnes?” She queried, her voice intentionally light and conversational instead of hurt and bewildered. “Me or yourself?” When he didn’t answer her, merely curled his fingers into tight fists at his sides, no pockets to hide them in, she scoffed and took a sip of her coffee. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

He was gone by the time she’d finished her mouthful and opened her eyes and she slammed her mug down on the table, eyes unfocused and decidedly _not_ swimming with tears. Her bottom lip wobbled a little when she noticed the crack in the bottom of her mug that was leeching coffee onto the table and moved to grab a dish cloth to clean up the mess. She pointedly ignored the forgotten cookies on the table and emptied the rest of her coffee down the sink and threw away her mug with a sad sigh.

Fuck, she hated arguing with people.

*

Steve found her just after lunch. And by just after lunch she meant it was three in the afternoon, because science waits for no woman to stop and eat even though her stomach is turning itself inside out and cannibalizing the fat stores she had in her more than generous ass. Anyway. It was just after three when the lab door bleeped and he let himself in with the code she’d long since given him and she ignored the way her stomach dropped a little when she saw he was by himself. No shadow today. Who was she kidding, after this morning she wasn’t at all surprised that Bucky didn’t want to come with him to see her.

She’d be mad at her too.

She pasted a friendly smile on her face and spun to face him on her spinny chair when he got close enough to have a civil conversation with her instead of shouting across the lab. He waved at Jane (who didn’t notice his presence, like, at all) and shuffled a few of her papers out of the way before he sat on her desk, long legs crossed at the ankle, his hair askew and eyes tired. He shot her a small but genuine smile and tapped his fingers against the edge of the desk. The smile on her face warmed and ok, so maybe she was actually glad to see him after all.

“Busy?”

Darcy shrugged and pulled a face. “Not really. Jane’s head is so far up science’s ass that I’m sure she’s gonna have to buy it dinner before the day’s out but I’ve got nothing to do.” She motioned to her open laptop, open on an empty spreadsheet and her Ipod that she’d been listening to before he’d come in, paused mid song with her headphones still attached. “Just been listening to some music.”

He peered at the display to see what she’d been listening to and frowned, his forehead wrinkling in concern. “Darce, why are you listening to your ‘The World Can Fuck Off and Die For All I Care’ playlist?” Big blue eyes blinked at her rapidly. “Are you alright? Did something happen?”

Fuck. He knew her way too well and she was sprung. Totally fucking sprung.

“No,” she lied smoothly, idly wondering if he could hear her heart beat pick up a few beats at the denial the same way Bucky was able to, “I’m fine.”

He shot her a look of barely concealed irritation and cocked an eyebrow. “Now I know you didn’t just actively lie to me, Darcy Anne Lewis.” At the sight of her stubbornly pursed lips, he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, forget about it.” He waved a hand at her and shook his head. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’ve seen Bucky today? He wasn’t in his room when I woke up and I figured he was just going to get something to drink but,” he shrugged helplessly, “-he’s not back yet and I’m a little worried. He can’t physically leave the building but he seemed to like you so I thought maybe he’d come find you or something? You know, a change of scenery and whatnot.”

Her brow creased in concern and she bit her lip. “I saw him first thing in the kitchen but not since,” she felt sick with the knowledge that it was probably her fault he was missing and she swore lowly. “ _Fuck_.”

Steve was alert, already on edge at the thought that something could have happened to his best friend and his gaze shifted from concern to suspicion in a split second. “Darcy,” he hedged, “What happened?”

She tugged the elastic out of her hair and ran her fingers through it shakily. “I was in the kitchen making coffee this morning when he just appeared at the table,” she blew out a breath and scrubbed at her face before retying her hair into a sloppy top knot. “He was sick last night, did you know?”

Steve looked surprised and shook his head, arms unfolding to grip the desk. “I, uh, no, no I didn’t know.” His eyes narrowed and he looked thoughtful. “He actually told you he’d been sick?”

She nodded, teeth worrying her lip. It felt bruised already and she stopped to run her fingers over it instead. “I felt so bad, Steve,” she held up her fingers about an inch apart, “I felt like, ‘this’ tall when he said he’d thrown up during the night and then out of nowhere he starts telling me to stop bothering with him. That he isn’t worth my time and effort because he’s not really a human being anymore.” Fuck. Her voice was wobbling like it did before she had a damn good cry and she hated that Steve could recognize it so fucking easily. “I pretty much threw down the gauntlet and challenged him right before he left.” She let out a humorless laugh and blinked rapidly to hold back her stupid tears. “I’m so sorry if this is all my fault, Steve, but how fucking _dare_ he tell me how to feel or who I can or cannot expend my time on!”

He gathered her up against his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head and shushed her, rocking her from side to side as she sniveled into his shirt, her fingers in tight little fists against his sides.

“He’s stubborn, Darce, just like someone else I know,” he murmured, dropping another kiss against her hair, “You’ve just gotta be persistent and show him that he _is_ important and worth your time.” 

She sniffed noisily and plucked at his shirt, her hand smoothing across the wet patch she’d left behind. “Sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassed. Right, moving on. “How am I supposed to do that, Steve, how? He’s been forced into every little thing for god knows how long and now here I am trying to do the same fucking thing.” Her voice was bitter and she was so angry at herself but also at him. How the hell had he gotten under her skin quite so quickly? “He told me to leave him alone, Steve.”

He hummed against her hair and gave her a comforting squeeze that she lapped up because she was complete and utter trash. Ugh. She wanted her one of her Mama’s patented hugs so bad right now.

“I’ll find him, alright? He’s gotta be in the building somewhere, Darce. I’ll find him.” He reaffirmed with a nod.

“Have you asked JARVIS where he is?”

Two sets of blue eyes blinked at Jane who was now standing in the middle of the room with a screw driver clenched in her teeth, hands above her head twisting her hair into a knot before she secured it with a random pen. She was missing a shoe and her socked foot had a hole in the toes but she was alert and had apparently been listening the whole time. Shock and awe.

Jane blinked at them, her brown eyes wide and incredulous. “You’re both idiots.” She muttered before disappearing back underneath one of her machines with a stern head shake.

Darcy stared at her boss’s feet for a split second and leaned towards Steve. “I think she’s a pod person or something..?”

He gave her the side eye. “I don’t know what that is, but I think you’re right.” He stared at Jane’s mismatched feet in confusion. “It’s just plain fucking weird.”

“If I may, Captain Rogers, I have taken the liberty of locating Sergeant Barnes on your behalf.” The AI stated and both he and Darcy looked up towards the ceiling in unison. Steve’s shoulders sagged in relief and Darcy felt the knot in her stomach loosen just a smidge. Her eyes fell shut and she sucked in a deep breath before letting it out slowly.

“Is he in the building, JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain, he appears to be in the janitors closet in basement sub-level three. Heat signatures indicate that he has been in his current location since approximately five-o-seven AM this morning.”

Darcy’s breath hitched in her chest and she swallowed another bout of tears. “What’s he doing in the closet?”

A moment later, the AI answered and sounded somewhat perplexed. “He appears to be sleeping, Miss Darcy. He has a resting heart rate of approximately seventy three beats per minute and his body temperature is somewhat lower than I have come to associate with his biometrics. I believe a blanket may be in order, Sir.”

Steve was already striding for the door, the big fluffy mink blanket that Darcy kept on the sofa in her office in his hand. “Is he in distress?”

“He does not appear to be, Sir.”

Steve’s reply was clipped and the AI fell silent once more. Darcy turned and moved to pick up her forgotten Ipod when Steve’s arm curled around her shoulder and he kissed her on the cheek. He’d come back.

“Not your fault, Darce.” He started for the door again and told her in no uncertain terms to stop beating herself up over his shoulder before he disappeared and the door re-locked after him. She was still sitting mutely, paused Ipod in hand ten minutes later when her phone dinged in the desk drawer indicating she had a new text. It was Steve and she swiped across to open the message.

_Found him_ , it read _, talk soon_.

She didn’t bother replying to the text and tossed her phone back into the drawer, locked it with the key on her lanyard (because one of the other lab staff had sticky fingers and she hadn’t figured out which one it was yet) and threw herself into her work for the rest of the day.

She listened to the same playlist for three hours straight before she switched it to something more mindless and less depressing. Fake it to make it, right?

Right.

*

It was two nights later when Darcy saw Steve next and she was sat in her usual spot at the table picking at a piece of cold pizza talking her mother on the phone. She smiled at him, distracted and leaned into him as he hugged her on his way to the fridge. He pointed to her phone and quirked a brow and she mouthed ‘Mama’ to him and he ambled back over to her side, a bottle of blue Gatorade in his big hand. He bent until he could hear her mother rambling on excitedly about a new knitting pattern she had discovered and purchased on Etsy that let her create some sort of Eastern European inspired throw blanket that was so beautiful but really fucking hard to get her head around because it was in fact, in German.

“Mama,” Darcy laughed quietly, “Why didn’t you just buy the pattern in English?” At Steve’s nod of agreement she snorted. “Steve agrees. He says you’re an uncultured idiot who needs to expand her horizons and learn how to read German.”

He flicked her ear hard and bent closer to the mouth piece. “I said no such thing, Mama Lewis.” He said loudly into the phone before moving back towards the fridge. “I’d never call you uncultured!”

Darcy snorted at the sound of her mother’s outrage and put her on speaker phone, setting the phone down on the table so they could both speak to her. It had been a few months since Steve had been available to talk to her and Darcy was tired of fielding her questions about his well-being. He had been decidedly less than ok last time he’d spoken to her (it had been right after the DC fiasco) and she was worried for the ‘boy’ she’d welcomed into her family.

_“Steven Grant Rogers, are you implying that I’m an idiot?”_ Her mother demanded, her tone haughty and full of mock outrage. Her accent was thicker when she told any of her three children off and she’d taken to using the very same ‘mom’ voice on him. It didn’t matter that he was technically in his nineties and was older than her, he was her boy and he got the same treatment as her other two sons and her daughter. He was a stubborn mule of a man and he needed a good kick in the ass sometimes to remind him to take care of himself. “ _Steven!_ ”

He took a sip of his drink and he had a wicked grin on his face before he schooled his expression into one of innocence. “I am neither confirming nor denying those accusations, Mama Lewis.”

She huffed and swore under her breath. _“I swear he’s not mine sometimes, takes after that no good father of his, I swear to Baby Jesus.”_

Darcy laughed out loud at the look on Steve’s face and tried to muffle it with the back of her hand but it didn’t work, not even a little bit. “Mama, you do remember that Steve is not your biological child, right?”

Her mother snorted down the line and she could tell she was rolling her eyes at the pair. _“Of course he is.”_ She insisted. _“The stork just got lost, is all. He belongs to me just as much as you do, Darcy Anne.”_

Darcy watched as Steve’s smile turned soft and a little watery and he picked at the label on his drink bottle. She cooed at him from her place at the table and watched him swipe his thumb across his eyes, embarrassed.

“Aw, Mama, you made him cry.”

_“Wait, what?”_ She scrambled to reassure him, just like she had when her brother Dylan had elbowed her in the face and broke her nose. Darcy hadn’t so much cared about the sheer amount of blood that there’d been but more that her nose was going to end up fat and crooked like Benjamin Brooker’s had after he’d broken it playing Lacrosse. _“Baby, it’s ok. Don’t cry. Darcy Anne, do something! Give the poor boy a goddamn hug!”_

Darcy huffed a laugh but slipped around the table to wrap him in a tight hug because despite the distance between them and the fact that she was on the fucking phone, Joanne Lewis would know if she hadn’t. She would _know_ , damn it. They rocked from foot to foot until Steve collected himself and she gave him a pat on the arm before returning to the table.

“Alright, Mama, I’m gonna have to let you get back to your weird German blanket and get on with things here, ok?” She reached for the phone with one hand and waved Steve closer with the other. “Say _‘bye’_ to your favorite child, Mama!”

Her mom was on point, as usual and made loud smooching sounds into the receiver. _“Kisses, Steve, be good and if you can’t be good, be damn good at it, Honey.”_

He snorted but kissed the air loudly by her mouthpiece in return. “Always, Mama.”

Her mom sounded proud as punch and Darcy bit back a giggle as the matriarch of her family cooed at him. It had taken all of a day for Steve to slot seamlessly into her family during their thanksgiving visit and her mother had him pinned as a troll within minutes of them breaching the front door.

_“Alright Baby, and Darcy_ ,” her mom said and Steve’s shoulders shook with quiet mirth, _“I’ll talk to you next time and try not to get arrested again, young lady! I don’t want another call from your local precinct’s booking department asking me to come get you, you hear me? Leave the goddamn taser at home!”_

“It was _one_ time!!” She cried, throwing her hands in the air and narrowly missing slapping Steve in his stupid face. “And you _gave_ me that taser when I moved out!”

Her mother huffed and muttered something about semantics before the line went dead and she was gone.

Steve shot her a bright, unhindered smile. “I love your mother.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and slumped into her chair, pocketing the phone. “She loves you too _, Baby_.” She snarked and he ruffled her hair, easily ducking out of reach when she kicked out at him with her socked foot. “You’re such a kiss-ass.”

He shrugged and practically threw himself into a seat across from her, wincing as it groaned under his weight. “Eh, what can you do?”

She rolled her eyes at him and tapped her short nails on the table top. She’d broken one in the lab earlier so had trimmed them all to the same length and it was taking some getting used to. “I don’t know, Steve, maybe not kiss her ass so much?”

He shot her a blinding smile and sat back in his seat, arm on the table and hand on his thigh. “But why would I do that?”

She smirked at him. “Ass.”

“No thanks, already got one.”

Her eyes rolled at him all on their own this time and she opened her mouth to cuss at him some more but stopped when she saw the wide eyed look of surprise on his face and he jerked his chin past her shoulder so she’d turn and look.

Bucky was standing in the doorway behind her, eyes on the floor with the vast majority of him wrapped in her mink blanket, his chin barely visible above the bright green striped fuzz and his legs poking out the bottom. His feet were bare again and his hair looked a little greasy but had obviously been combed recently.

She cleared her throat and tried not to gasp at the raw misery in his eyes when his chin jerked up and he met her gaze. He swallowed wordlessly and shuffled on the spot before taking a slow, tentative step into the room, blanket clutched tighter around him.

His voice was quiet, raspy from disuse and a little rough from the lingering effects of sleeping all day. “You have a family.” At her hum of assent, he frowned. “Brothers.”

She nodded at him slowly, unsure of where he was going with this. “Yeah, two of them. Three if you count Steve.”

His mouth twisted, confused and he buried his nose in the blanket for a minute, inhaling the scent that lingered on it, the one that had seemingly soothed him enough for him to be able to sleep for the past two days.

“I have a sister.” His brow creased and he shook his head. “ _Had_. I _had_ a sister.”

Steve made a tiny choking sound that Darcy recognized as distress behind her but she ignored him and carefully pulled herself to her feet. She padded a little closer and peered up at him, desperate to reach out and hold his hand just for a minute if he would let her. She waited until he was ready to speak again. It took two, maybe three minutes, but he eventually looked up at her, eyes bloodshot and sad but they were dry.

“She’s dead.” He swallowed, eyes widening a fraction when he realized how close she’d gotten while he’d been lost in his head, his thoughts swirling and racing. His voice broke a little, the only outward indication of his misery. “I was so busy goin’ all over, killin’ people, that I missed everythin’.” He looked away, unable to meet her sad eyes. “I missed it all.”

Darcy took a tentative half step toward him, then another when he didn’t back away from her. “That wasn’t your fault, Sweetie. None of that was your fault.” She purposely kept her tone gentle and her voice even softer so he didn’t spook and do another runner on her. She carefully telegraphed her every move until she was right in front of him, could feel the warmth he was throwing off and could smell him, salty with sweat and warm skin with a hint of her perfume lingering on her blanket, sweet blueberries and orchids. “Can I give you a hug, Bucky?”

He blinked at her, confused and on the very brink of running away. Her heart broke at his look of wild eyed confusion. “But… why?”

She gave him a little shrug, not even that, and her mouth curled into a tiny smile. “Because you need one.”

His eyes darted between her and Steve in silent communication but she kept facing him, not looking back over her shoulder despite how much she really wanted to. She waited him out and was just about to take a step back, give him some room, maybe, when he made a small, jerky movement toward her and gave her a miniscule blink and you’ll miss it nod.

She pulled at the folds of the blanket until she could see him underneath, could see the thin white cotton of his t-shirt and the striped boxer shorts he wore and carefully stepped up until there were scant inches between them. “Ok, I’m gonna put my arms around your waist now, alright?”

He looked down at her with his mouth set in a frown. “Why are you tellin’ me what you’re doin’?”

Darcy felt sick at the implication of his words. “Informed consent is a thing, Bucky Barnes.”

“… Oh.”

He sounded so lost, so confused by her concern that she couldn’t help herself. She pushed her hands past his waist, fingers skimming the solid plane of his sides on the way before she closed her arms around him, hands splayed across his lower back and buried her face in his chest. She gave him a firm squeeze and pressed her cheek over his ribs, his heart beat solid and just a little rapid against her face. She could feel the accelerating thump-thump-thump of it and she squeezed him tighter, burrowing closer until they were pressed together from hip to chest and slid her hand up between his shoulder blades. She could feel the hard edge of metal where bone should have been and she took a slow, shaky breath. God, the things they’d done him. He made a small sound in the back of his throat and held himself ramrod straight for a moment before muscle memory kicked in and his arms, flesh and metal curled around her and she was cocooned inside the blanket with him, her world going dark. She rubbed her cheek against the middle of his rib cage and let her hand stroke the warm flat of his back, up and down until his heart slowed to a steady beat and the weight of his head pressed to the top of hers became familiar and comfortable.

“You ok?” It was barely even a whisper but she could feel his answering head shake against her hair and she slipped her hand under the back of his shirt to press against his skin. She could feel raised lines that criss-crossed all over the place that she instinctively knew were scars and for a brief moment she wondered if he minded her touching them but then his arms adjusted around her and she found herself hauled even tighter against him like he was scared she’d disappear like smoke in the breeze. “It’s ok,” she soothed quietly, fingertips stroking the myriad of lines across his skin, “I’m not going anywhere.”

It made her heart hurt to think that this might be the first innocently intentioned show of affection he’d experienced since the forties.

“She’s gone,” he whispered into the dark that surrounded them after a few minutes of shaky breathing into her hair, “-‘m never gonna see her again.”

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut against the onslaught of tears that she knew was coming and dotted a chaste kiss against the place his heartbeat felt strongest. She pressed her cheek over the same spot and ignored the pinch of metal plates digging into her back. She wouldn’t let him go until he was ready and her nails pressed into his skin lightly as he began to sob, quietly at first then graduating into painful, shuddering jerks.

She idly wondered if Steve was ok, still sat at the table watching his best friend fall apart under a huge green blanket but pushed the thought aside as Bucky started to hiccup from the force of his tears and she ran her fingers down the length of his spine, pressed her face into his neck and settled in for the duration.

 

*

He hid from her for the next week, the dark shadow of him prowling the building in the small pre-dawn hours when he knew she’d be sleeping.

Steve told her he was embarrassed.

She told Steve to tell him that he had no need to be and that it was a horse shit excuse for avoiding her.

Bucky started going to an on-site therapist that specialized in PTSD and POW’s. She wanted to ask how it was going but it didn’t feel right, so she didn’t and he continued to avoid her for another week.

*

There was a new Care Bear mug waiting for her when she staggered into the kitchen at the beginning of week three and she stopped short at the sight of it, her mouth falling open then snapping shut, clearly confused. She approached it with the same suspicion that you would approach a live bomb and spun it in a circle to inspect it with a single finger. The design was different to the last, this one heavily featured Goodluck Bear with the rest of them packed into a cloud car in the distance, happy smiling little stars dotted all over with a novelty handle shaped like a rainbow. It had the classic love heart logo on the inside of the mug and she knew right away that it was one of the more difficult to find ones that existed. She’d know. She had scoured the web for fucking weeks before she’d found her last one. Someone had spent a good chunk of time _and_ change procuring it.

She cleared her throat and swallowed past the lump that had formed there. “JARVIS?”

His reply was quiet and reflected the time of morning it was, almost as if the AI knew it was too early for loud noises. It was still dark outside but it wouldn’t be long before the sun started to creep over the horizon in a blaze of orange and gold. The kitchen lights were down low but the light was on over the ovens and the coffee maker was already turned on.

“Yes, Miss Darcy?”

“Would I be correct in assuming this was left here by a certain ex-soviet assassin who shall remain nameless?”

“I am not at liberty to answer your question at this time, Miss Darcy.”

She hummed softly and picked up the mug, curling her fingers around it for a moment before she filled it up and inhaled the mouth-watering scent of perfectly brewed coffee, added a dash of vanilla and headed into the common room to watch some television until she woke up completely. She had a busy day coming up and she had a feeling that she’d be mainlining caffeine by the end of it if she wasn’t careful. Also, she had to restrict Jane to decaf today because she’d spent the past four days bouncing off the walls and stuffing her face with cold pop tarts. Actually, no sugar for Jane today either, just fruit and sandwiches. She snuggled into the plush cushions on the sofa and blinked blearily at the flat screen that was mounted on the wall, classic looney tunes playing on the screen, volume so low she could barely hear it.

She was fifteen minutes in with a lazy smirk curling her lips and Elmer Fudd was serenading a ‘dead’ Bugs Bunny in glorious operatic style when she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and she knew she wasn’t the only one up and about anymore. There was someone else in the room. Before she even had the chance to even turn around something moved and the silence was broken, light footsteps coming up behind her and around the end of the sofa. She saw the metal arm first and the anxiety in her gut loosened for the first time in weeks as he settled himself into the far end of her sofa and dropped his head onto the arm, shifting and shuffling until he was tucked into a compact ball with his feet tucked underneath him, arms wrapped around his knees.

He was here. He was alive and he was ok.

“S’this Looney Tunes?” He asked around a yawn, his voice thick with sleep.

Darcy nodded as she watched him out of the corner of her eye. “Yep.” She took a deliberate sip of coffee from her new mug and stared at the scene playing out on the television.

There was a beat of quiet, just the sound of their breathing and the cartoon in the early morning air, then he spoke again. He sounded hesitant and unsure of himself. “Is it ok?”

She knew he didn’t mean the cartoon and part of her wanted to be angry at him for avoiding her for the better half of a month but she couldn’t bring herself to be awful to him. She wanted to say something sharp and cutting about her being important enough for him to acknowledge after so long but she knew that wasn’t the right thing to do, it was the childish part of her that still got a little jealous when someone else ate the last of her favorite cookies and made her want to stomp her foot and scream about the unfairness of it all. But now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the right way of handling things, especially with Bucky and she found herself smiling shyly into her mug and nodding instead. It didn’t feel wrong, at all.

“Yes.” She glanced at him and reached out to pat the broad stretch of his flannel clad thigh. “It’s more than ok.”

She didn’t let her hand linger and pulled back, leaving it sat beside her in the sunken cushions as she sipped her coffee and listened to the deep, calming in-out of his breathing across the sofa. She blinked blearily at the screen and felt herself doing the nod, her brain trying to go back to sleep. She was almost there when she felt the light trace of fingers against her palm and those same fingers curling around hers in a gentle but warm pressure. Her mug was eased from her almost limp hand and she could hear the clink of it being set down on the coffee table before a heavy weight settled at her side and she was warm again.

Steve found them an hour later curled toward each other on the sofa, cartoons still playing in the background as they slept soundly, shoulder pressed to shoulder with Bucky’s nose buried in the riot of Darcy’s curly hair. Their hands were tangled against Bucky’s thigh and Steve found himself painfully grateful that he had both of them right there in the building with him.

He had brought Bucky in from the cold, but Darcy had given him a home.

Even if she didn’t know it yet.

Things were far from perfect, but it was a start.

 

 


End file.
